


Sentimental Journey

by roboticonography



Series: Flames 'verse [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Deleted Scenes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1247584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticonography/pseuds/roboticonography
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper and Peggy take a road trip. Takes place near the start of Chapter 10 of Flames We Never Lit. Written for the P2 Secret Valentine exchange on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sentimental Journey

Pepper didn’t particularly enjoy driving; she’d come to it later than most people she knew, her mother never having owned a car. One of the nicest perks of her promotion, she felt, was the use of SI company cars and drivers. Driving in heavy traffic made Pepper edgy, and whenever she had a passenger she always felt obliged to make polite, distracted conversation.

 

The good news was, Pepper had learned on their last outing that Peggy didn’t really do small talk. It wasn’t that she didn’t make conversation; she simply didn’t waste words. Even her occasional false starts and ellipses seemed measured and deliberate, like a well-rehearsed actor delivering a crucial line. Pepper wondered how much of that self-assurance was cultivated, and if it had to do with her work during the war.

 

Their first stop was a Starbucks drive-through: Pepper normally made her own coffee in the mornings, but road trips were the perfect opportunity to indulge.

 

After pulling up at the back of the line, she checked her phone: two texts from Tony already, before the sun was even up. She was about to read them when the car in front of her began to move, and she put the phone away, trying not to worry too much. Ever since the attack on Manhattan, she fretted every time she missed a call or a text from Tony, to the point where she turned the ringer volume all the way up on her phone before she went to bed, because it was the only way she’d be able to fall asleep.

 

Pepper ordered a mocha for herself, and suggested a chai latte for Peggy, who’d never had one. Fuelled by caffeine and chocolate, she slugged away at the early morning traffic, making an effort not to curse under her breath. They broke free of the tangled knot of rush hour, hitting I-80 just as the sky brightened.

 

To make up for her own deficiencies as a conversationalist, Pepper turned the radio to NPR.

 

After an item on the health benefits of whole milk, Peggy remarked, “Imagine that,” and sipped her drink with a satisfied air, pronouncing it “quite good.”

 

“Feel free to change the station if you get bored.”

 

Peggy glanced at the sleek stereo console dubiously.

 

“Or I can change it,” Pepper amended.

 

“This is fine. What are we doing about lunch?”

 

“I thought we’d just stop along the way. I checked, and there are a few different places that look good.” Pepper handed Peggy a sheaf of materials she’d printed from Google Maps—the directions to IKEA and to the new apartment, and locations and reviews of various diners.

 

Peggy perused the reviews. “What is a ‘garbage plate’?”

 

“Sort of what it sounds like. A few different things, like macaroni and fries and hot dogs, all kind of piled on top of each other. I think there’s hot sauce as well.”

 

Peggy looked slightly horrified at the prospect.

 

“People seem to like it,” Pepper added, trying to be charitable. Since they’d arrived on the east coast, Tony hadn’t missed an opportunity to mock her for being a California food snob—a barb that she suspected annoyed her because of its ring of truth.

 

“If it’s all the same to you, let’s not,” said Peggy dryly, and turned to the next page.

 

They eventually settled on a diner that served breakfast all day. It turned out to be a charming slice of roadside Americana, exactly the type of place Pepper had been hoping for.

 

Peggy ordered fried eggs, sausages _and_ bacon, hash browns, toast with jam, orange juice, and milk, without a glimmer of self-consciousness. Pepper had been planning to get the fruit cup with yogurt, but after hearing Peggy’s order, she somehow wound up asking for chocolate-chip pancakes.

 

“How long have you known Tony?” asked Peggy, without any preamble. It was a bit like being on a job interview, and Pepper could feel the attendant nerves rising. For reasons she couldn’t quite understand, Peggy seemed to be fond of Tony, who in turn was very protective of her. It was unusual, because Tony didn’t tend to have female friends, and especially strange considering Peggy’s possible connection to Tony’s father (Tony kept insisting to Pepper that the two had dated, but he didn’t cite any sources other than intuition, and Peggy had never mentioned it).

 

“I started as his personal assistant in 1999. I did that job until a couple of years ago. Tony decided he wanted to retire, and asked me to take over as CEO—he’d lost interest in the administrative and public relations side of the work, and wanted to focus on the technology. I convinced him to stay on as CTO. So… he works for me now. According to the org chart, anyway. It’s more complicated than that, of course, since he’s also majority shareholder, but that’s how we do it.”

 

“And Steve? He mentioned that you’d met.”

 

Pepper had only seen Steve on a handful of occasions, when Tony had invited him over for dinner while she was still living at the Tower. Tony had made overtures of friendship to all of the Avengers after the attack—but, because it was Tony, the gestures were inevitably excessive, and somewhat off-putting.

 

Pepper had a fleeting impression of Steve as courteous, with a wry sense of humour, and steadfast in the onslaught of Hurricane Tony, if a bit embarrassed by all the fuss. He was also very possibly _the_ most handsome man Pepper had ever seen up close in real life—and, unlike most good-looking people, seemed relatively unaffected by it.

 

“A couple of times, through Tony. Oh, and one time there was a formal event for the Avengers at the governor’s house, and I danced with him.”

 

It had been shortly after she and Tony had finally split; Pepper had already agreed to be his date, and was determined to see it through. Tony had spent the entire evening making small talk with every available woman there, in an obvious attempt to get a rise out of her, so Pepper had responded in kind by dancing with Steve (who didn’t seem to enjoy it much) and Thor (who seemed to enjoy it immensely). Overall, it had been a pretty childish spectacle, but they’d been better to each other since then, at least in public.

 

“So he did find someone to teach him to dance,” said Peggy, with a brusqueness that was obviously meant to mask any display of emotion.

 

“He told me that he taught himself.”

 

Peggy hummed noncommittally, and excused herself to visit the ladies’ room. The timing may have been coincidental, but Pepper suspected otherwise.

 

Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her purse. Fourteen texts. She felt her stomach drop abruptly, and started to scroll through the messages. If he’d been hurt again, or…

 

But no, Tony was fine, though obviously very bored with whatever project meeting he was in.

 

_Go away_ , she texted. _Girls’ road trip. No boys allowed._

 

_When are you back?_

 

_Late tonight._

 

_You should come over and watch a movie._

(Which she knew was code for, _we should absolutely have ourselves some sex this evening._ )

 

_We need to stop doing that._

 

_You love movies._

 

_I hear you’ve been watching movies with a lot of women lately,_ she wrote back.

 

The truth was, Pepper didn’t actually object to the occasional one-nighter at Tony’s on any sort of moral grounds. She knew he was careful, and she wasn’t opposed to casual sex in the abstract; she’d certainly had her share of it, before Tony was a real possibility. He wouldn’t be using her, any more than she would be using him.

 

It was the mornings that got to her. Waking up in what had been their bedroom; cuddling; having breakfast together in the kitchen, surrounded by cabinets and fixtures she had picked out… that part was the most dangerous. That was the moment when she missed him the most, the moment she might weaken and suggest they get back together.

 

She couldn’t keep putting herself through that. It wasn’t fair. To either of them.

 

Tony wrote, _Perez Hilton is reaching._

 

_I don’t think it’s healthy._

 

_1\. Cardio. 2. Endorphins. 3. Better sleep. 4. Less stress. P.S. You said you wanted to be friends._

 

_I don’t sleep with my friends._

 

_That’s because none of your friends is as sexy as me._

 

Peggy slid into the booth on her side of the table moments before the food arrived, and Pepper hurriedly dropped the phone back in her bag.

 

She stared at her plate of pancakes for a moment before she realized Peggy wasn’t eating either, but instead was watching her, concerned. “Is something the matter?”

 

Pepper shook her head, and picked up her knife and fork. “Don’t mind me. This looks good, doesn’t it?”

 

*

 

Pepper checked her phone again as they were walking to the car. Two more texts:

 

_Potts? In or out?_

 

and

 

_We can also just talk. Seriously. It’s been a long week._

 

Pepper leaned against the driver’s side of the car, feeling unmoored, and angry almost to the point of tears. Why couldn’t he be this honest with her in person? Why couldn’t they just be friends, why did everything have to be such a _production_?

 

Inside the car, Peggy was cautiously pressing buttons on the radio.

 

Pepper couldn’t help feeling like a bit of a coward next to Peggy, who had lived through war and devastating loss, and who remained stalwart and fearless in the face of so much uncertainty.

 

_Okay_ , she wrote back. _Just talking, and you drive me home after._ She added, _I miss you too, but I think this is better for both of us._ Then she set her phone to silent and zipped it into her purse.

 

Having found a station she could tolerate, Peggy leaned over and rapped on the window. “The weather’s changing,” she pointed out. “We should get a move on.”

 

“You’re right,” said Pepper, getting behind the wheel and dropping her bag in the back seat. "It's time to move on."


End file.
